(CBC News) – Lawyers for Taser International will be in B.C. Supreme Court on Monday to challenge the conclusions of the first Braidwood Taser inquiry, including the finding that the stun gun’s electric shocks can be fatal.
Commissioner Thomas Braidwood oversaw the two-part inquiry after the death of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant who died after receiving several shocks from an RCMP Taser at Vancouver’s airport in 2007.
In his first report issued in July 2009, Braidwood concluded Tasers could increase the risk of fatal heart failure under certain circumstances, and their use should be restricted.
In a court petition, Taser International responded that Braidwood didn’t take into account the information the company provided and that it wasn’t given a chance to respond at the inquiry.
The Arizona-based company claims it has been forced to travel the world defending its products since the report was released and has lost a multimillion-dollar contract in Africa.
Braidwood made 19 recommendations in his first report to the B.C. government, including that “conducted energy weapons,” or stun guns, should not be used to enforce municipal bylaws or provincial laws — but only federal criminal offences.
He also recommended that the current threshold of “active resistance to police” is too low for use of stun guns and a higher threshold should be adopted.
A police officer must believe, he said, that the subject is causing or is about to cause bodily harm and that no lesser-force option or de-escalation technique would be effective before deploying a stun gun.
He also recommended that stun guns only be used in single five-second bursts in most cases — rather than multiple bursts — citing increased medical risks associated with repeated shocks, and that paramedic assistance be requested in every medically high-risk situation.
Braidwood’s second report, which focused on Dzeikanski’s death, concluded the RCMP were not justified in using a Taser against him and that the officers later deliberately misrepresented their actions to investigators.
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